Flu view

A caller Thursday asked if anyone has looked deeper into the unceasing clamor from public-health types to get a flu shot right now. He suspected this might be a money-making scheme on someone’s part.

As it happens, my wife and I got our flu shots in October, and we haven’t had so much as a sniffle between us this winter. As for me, I’m a big fan of flu shots and haven’t suffered from the flu since, if memory serves, 1991. I’ve had a flu shot every year since 1993. So I’m disinclined to the motives of those calling for everyone to get a flu shot.

We rarely pause to think about medicines that have vastly improved our lives. Thanks to flu shots, I haven’t had the flu in 20 years. Thanks to a wonder drug called Claritin, I no longer have allergic reactions to pollen in springtime; this used to make me miserable, bordering on incapacitated, for a couple weeks every spring. Antibiotics may have saved my life on two occasions. It always amazes me when people accuse the pharmaceutical industry of all manner of skulduggery, never stopping to consider the mitigating factor: how these companies’ research programs and product lines have improved our lives.

Anyway, is the current flu outbreak (I hesitate to call it an epidemic, especially when hardly anyone I know contracted it) worthy of a follow-the-money probe? After all, when a lot of folks in white coats and politicians in expensive suits urge us to buy a particular product, the makers of that product stand to benefit in the pocketbook. And without mass inoculations, a lot of well-heeled people in the medical profession will lose money in these pre-mandatory-health-insurance times, as uninsured, sick people show up for free emergency room treatment.

So, for the edification of those who are concerned about such things, here’s a story from The Washington Post outlining the five myths of the current flu outbreak. And here’s a report from ABC News on businesses profiting from the illness. These include retailers that are selling lots of hand sanitizer and the like. And here’s some information on stocks that may become more valuable thanks to the outbreak.